Silliness is epidemic in nation's politics

There is an old saying about politics being theater for the ugly. Theater always had been a part of it and frankly a reason why politics has been fascinating to follow. But somewhere along the way it went from acceptable drama to Three Stooges.

When Sen. Frank Lautenberg summoned Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Deputy Director Bill Baroni to Washington to embarrass the Christie administration without stopping to think Lautenberg had embarrassing issues himself related to the bi-state authority, it was not like a serious, dignified Senate inquiry. It was more of a Monty Python sketch.

It was reminiscent of "The Life Of Brian," where a Roman guard caught one of the Python guys writing ugly graffiti in Latin about the occupying Romans on a wall. The guard noted the verb was in the wrong tense and forced the guy to write it correctly on the wall 100 times as punishment.

Never have I seen the equal to the old dog stories from the current campaign. Mitt Romney put his dog in a kennel on top of his car in 1983 and the family drove from Boston to Canada on vacation. The dog became ill and they stopped and hosed him off. That was 29 years ago.

Someone on the Romney side of things then pointed out that in his book Obama wrote that as a child in Indonesia he was fed dog meat. That was more than 40 years ago.

Most of us would never strap a dog kennel to the top of a car and even fewer of us would eat dog. I could point out Obama was a boy and his parents chose his food while Romney was an adult. But come on, are these old stories the most pressing issues facing the country? Is this how we select leaders? Even Third World countries are laughing at us.

Most Americans are not that trivial or silly. My sense is this kind of childish chatter is turning people off to the major political parties and the political process. I'm not alone.

Journalist Linda Killian has written a book that explores why Americans are moving away from political party affiliation. "The Swing Vote: The Untapped Power of Independents" says 40 percent of American voters are independent voters although they may belong to a political party. "These Americans are anything but divided, and have determined the outcome of every election since World War II."

In 2008, both Obama and John McCain said they would reach across the aisle and restore civility and dignity to conducting the nation's business, demonstrating they realized it was needed. "The first four years of the Obama administration has seen nothing but an increase in the acrimony and gridlock that has come to define the American political process," Killian noted.

"Those elected to Congress are primarily at the ends of the political spectrum and are beholden to their party leaders and supporters. As a result, Congress is held in lower esteem by the public than it has been in a hundred years."

She writes that Americans are faced with a dysfunctional government and a polarized political system "controlled by political parties and party elites and special interests that seem incapable of dealing with serious issues and choices. The necessity for a revolt by the people is no less great than it was at our founding."

Speaking of founders, George Washington was the only president not a member of a political party. In fact, he warned against them. We should have listened.

Unnecessary partisanship and the silliness it spawns are not problems only at the national level. New Jersey is faced with high taxes, high unemployment, corruption and waste, but you wouldn't know that by the sniping that goes on in Trenton, often over trivial matters or long-dead issues - like Gov. Christie's killing the train to Macy's basement. Or the attack on the Rutgers school song because it referred to men.

With nearly 9 million people in this state, is this the best we can do?

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Silliness is epidemic in nation's politics

There is an old saying about politics being theater for the ugly. Theater always had been a part of it and frankly a reason why politics has been fascinating to follow. But somewhere along the way it

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